A genetic study of samples from more than 7,500 people infected with COVID-19 suggests the new coronavirus spread quickly around the world after it emerged in China sometime between October and December last year, scientists said on Wednesday.
Scientists at University College London's Genetics Institute found almost 200 recurrent genetic mutations of the new coronavirus — SARS-CoV-2 — which the UCL researchers said showed how it is adapting to its human hosts as it spreads.
"Phylogenetic estimates support that the COVID-2 pandemic started sometime around Oct. 6, 2019 to Dec. 11, 2019, which corresponds to the time of the host jump into humans," the research team, co-led by Francois Balloux, wrote in a study published in the journal Infection, Genetics and Evolution.